The Shield That Stayed Behind
by Shirerose
Summary: In which Tony anthropomorphizes a shield, Ross is generally evil and Steve is stubborn.


Definitely my first time in this fandom and I started with Tony Stark and Steve Roger's Shield...and lots of bromance. Well, I always knew that I was odd...

I make no excuses for bromance or the Doctor Who reference (I love the idea of the Avengers catching Steve up on 50 years of sci-fi).

Meddwl

* * *

 **The Shield That Stayed Behind**

* * *

The shield watches him as he fiddles with his tools and blows things up. It is silent and scarred and almost as famous as its owner (ex-owner, temporary user…whatever). For some reason this doesn't bother Tony as much as it did in its previous user (such a nice bland term for such a complicated mess).

It might be that his father didn't want him to be _like_ the shield, his father wanted him to _make_ similar marvels. And he has.

He is brilliant and complicated and important and he has a scratched shield hanging on his wall. It's worth millions of dollars if he melts it and remakes it…but at some point he has become fond of it. And somehow he doesn't think Pepper would consider jewelry made out of a disgraced legend as a suitable I-am-sorry-can-we-please-not-be-taking-a-break-anymore gift.

About five weeks after he first hangs it up he starts trying out nicknames. He stays away from "Stevie" and "Roger's Ransom" (there's no one to laugh at his insulting jokes anymore). "S" just doesn't work and "Ashildr" would be good but it's too nerdy and perhaps too close to home. He settles on Scratches because it's battered and scarred and he refuses to completely anthropomorphize a glorified frisbee (yet).

Around week seven he starts talking to it (so much for not anthropomorphizing…but then he also created JARVIS and FRIDAY so why not?) It's therapeutic in a way, the shield is sort of Steve without the perfect teeth or the murderous best friend or the annoying tendency to plant his feet and not budge an inch. He yells and babbles and guilt-trips and tears up because he can and the shield just hangs there patiently (it is a good replacement for Steve). He glances at the phone (who uses a flip-phone anyways…?) but his conversations always end up directed to Scratches instead. It's like having a cat…

Ross comes by a couple of times. Tony feels dirty just being in the same room as the guy. He smiles like a shark when he sees the shield hanging like a trophy on the wall and Tony doesn't enlighten him as to its none-trophy-newly-anthropomorphized status but sometimes he takes showers after Ross leaves.

The rest of the team (Cap's Team…the Ex-Avengers…Outlawed Heroes?) has been busy. Particularly nasty criminals; drug-runners, human-traffickers, weapons dealers keep turning up handily unconscious with their empires in ashes all over the world.

Tony finds it annoying and (maybe) just a little amusing as he recounts these stories to Scratches. Ross turns pale with rage and chokes on his own impotence every time the news reaches them. He tells Scratches that too.

It makes Tony's job easier.

He is telling Scratches jokes from all movies he knows Steve hasn't seen, the day Cap comes home.

His spatial awareness has never been the best when he is engrossed in something (and Cap can be surprisingly cat-like for someone of his height and broadness) so he doesn't notice until a familiar chuckle over his shoulder startles him into tipping off his somewhat precarious stool.

Cap grimaces and starts apologizing as Tony stares in disbelief. Eventually his tongue come unstuck.

"You're not supposed to be here." he finally says.

Cap blinks and tries not to look hurt.

"I mean Ross is looking for you, what are you thinking!"

Now Cap just looks bewildered, "You didn't call and you didn't answer. I was worried that something might have happened."

(He may have ignored the buzzing phone while he was busy unloading his problems on Scratches…)

Oops.

"I'm fine" he says and then he feels bitterness surge up and anger and an uncontrollable urge to wound as he has been wounded.

"Except of course that all my friends betrayed me, or lied or ran away. Well not all of them, the semi-paralyzed one stuck around and the mopey android. The rest were more interested in helping a lying criminal and the man who strangled my mom."

Cap jerks back as though Tony had struck him.

"It wasn't Bucky who killed your mom" he says at last, "he was tortured and brainwashed. I couldn't let you kill him."

"What about our friendship?" Tony snarls (it is different having this conversation with someone who can answer back).

Cap opens his mouth but FRIDAY cuts him off.

"Secretary Ross is here. With reinforcements."

For a bitter second Tony is glad. Then he sees the resignation on Steve's face and all his anger and resentment and fury die away in a flood of worry.

"You have to go" he says urgently, "If Ross finds you here…"

"He'll be delighted" says Steve softly, "You can turn me in and Ross will forget about the others. They'll be able to go home."

"What!" Tony is aghast, without the anger he is remembering how to feel shame.

"No! Steve he'll lock you up and dissect you or something. That's probably what he wanted all along. He hates you and not just because of the Accords."

A tiny glimmer of fear flickers in Steve's blue-green (imperfect) eyes and disappears.

"I am not getting you in trouble too" he begins, "I brought the others in because I thought there were more super soldiers. This is just me, I'm a lying criminal remember."

Tony has spent a lot of time griping about Steve's stubbornness but he hasn't dealt with it in a while, it's almost refreshing.

"Oh no. You are not turning yourself in so that I can keep telling jokes to your shield."

"What about your suit and all your inventions? We can't let Ross get his hands on anything…" begins Steve thankfully ignoring the comment about his shield.

"It's all secure…elsewhere. I've only been keeping one suit here at a time in case Ross pulled something like this." says Tony, already half-encased in Ironman.

He plucks Scratches from the wall and tosses it to Steve who catches it as though he had never left it behind.

Captain America is back.

"Vison, Rhodes?" he asks.

"Not here." Tony assures him "We can collect them on the way to wherever your secret lair is."

Steve smiles.

* * *

"You told jokes to Steve's shield?" asks Clint with a not-unfriendly-but-I-don't-forgive-as-easily-as-Cap half-smile.

"And you nicknamed it Scratches?" continues the Ant-guy (Tony can see were this is going).

Sam Wilson's stern look cracks a bit.

"So you like cats?"

(Wakanda is full of cats…and statues of cats…temples to cats. They also have lots of vibranium and really cool tech. Tony fits right in.)


End file.
